Thanks for this info! My fiancée and I weren't planning to get married until after graduation, but maybe we should reconsider the timeline if it would help with financial aid. Would getting married now affect her financial aid situation too? She's currently classified as a dependent student on her parents' taxes.

Getting married would make both of you independent students for FAFSA purposes, regardless of whether your parents still claim either of you as dependents on their taxes (those are separate systems). This could be beneficial for both of you if your incomes are lower than your parents', as financial aid would be calculated based only on your finances, not your parents'. However, it could potentially reduce aid if one of you has significant income or assets that would now be counted toward both of your FAFSAs. Marriage also makes you eligible to file taxes jointly, which could have its own implications.

This is smart advice. I did the community college route too for similar reasons. Saved a ton of money and still got my teaching degree. Many community colleges also have special institutional scholarships that don't require FAFSA completion.

Does this apply if I'm under 26 but financially independent? I thought the ACA lets parents keep kids on insurance until 26 regardless of dependent status for taxes?

You're right that the ACA allows children to remain on their parents' health insurance until age 26, regardless of tax dependent status. That's a separate regulation from the tax rules. However, some employers offer additional pre-tax benefits for health insurance premiums for dependents, and those specific benefits might require tax dependent status under their cafeteria plan rules. It varies by employer, so your mom should check with her HR department to see if there would be any change in her pre-tax benefits if she doesn't claim you as a tax dependent.

This is important! I learned the hard way too. What's the best way to figure out the right withholding amount? Should OP use the IRS calculator or is there an easier way?

Thanks for mentioning Opportunity Zones. I've heard of them but don't really understand how they work. Do I have to invest the exact amount of my gains, or can I do partial? And is there a time limit after selling my stocks to invest in an OZ?

You need to invest your capital gains (not necessarily the entire proceeds from your sale) into a Qualified Opportunity Fund within 180 days of realizing the gain. You can definitely do partial investments - any portion of your gains that you invest will get the tax deferral. The main benefits are: 1) You defer paying taxes on your original stock gains until 2026, 2) If you hold the OZ investment for 5+ years, you get a 10% reduction on those original deferred taxes, and 3) If you hold the OZ investment for 10+ years, any new gains from the OZ investment itself are completely tax-free. It's complex but can be very advantageous if real estate investing aligns with your goals.

Yes! I trade in my Roth and it's awesome for tax-free growth. But there are limits - you can only contribute $7,000/year for 2025 if you're under 50, and there are income phaseouts that start around $146,000 for single filers. Also, you can't touch the earnings without penalties until 59½ in most cases.

I actually do have a Roth IRA but haven't been very active with it. I'm contributing the max already, but never thought about doing my more active trading in there instead of my regular brokerage account. Might be a good strategy for next year to avoid this tax situation altogether.

Wait, seriously? So I might owe taxes on my scholarship money? Nobody told me that! How do I even report that on my tax return?

Yes, it's a common misunderstanding that all scholarship and grant money is tax-free. It's only tax-free to the extent it's used for qualified education expenses (tuition, fees, books, supplies, and equipment required for enrollment). Any excess is taxable. You report taxable scholarship income on your tax return as "wages, salaries, tips, etc." even though you didn't receive a W-2 for it. There should be a line in your tax software for "scholarships and grants not reported on W-2." Keep in mind this is separate from the strategy of deliberately treating Pell Grants as taxable to maximize AOTC - that's an additional choice you can make.

Thanks for bringing this up! I'm definitely still within my first 4 years of college, enrolled full-time, and don't have any drug convictions lol. My parents' income is around $90k combined, so I think we're still eligible for at least a partial credit? I'll double check with them.

You're welcome! With your parents' income at around $90k combined (assuming they're married filing jointly), they should still be eligible for the full AOTC. The phaseout doesn't begin until $160,000 for married couples filing jointly, so they're well below that threshold. If they were filing as single or head of household, the phaseout would start at $80,000, but based on what you've said, this doesn't seem to be a concern either way. Just make sure whoever claims the credit (either you or your parents) has enough tax liability to benefit from it, since only 40% of the AOTC is refundable.

I hadn't considered Drake! Does it handle direct import from TradeLog or would I still need to use the PDF export method? I'm open to trying new software if it saves me from printing everything.

Drake doesn't have direct integration with TradeLog that I'm aware of, so you'd still need to use the PDF export method. The advantage is just that Drake can handle much larger PDFs without breaking them up. If you want direct integration, you might look at TaxACT Professional (different from the consumer version) which has more import options for investment data. It's more expensive but might be worth it for the convenience if you have hundreds of transactions every year.

This is a good suggestion. Another trick is to export as grayscale and lower the resolution. Most tax forms don't need color or high resolution. I got a 15mb file down to 2.8mb doing this.